


Initial Conditions

by BloodyMary



Series: Emergent Order [1]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Gen, JEDI AU, Jedi Appreciation (Star Wars), Jedi Culture & Tradition (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BloodyMary/pseuds/BloodyMary
Summary: Step 1: Lose a sky-walker.Step 2: Acquire a youngling.Step 3: ???Step 4: PROFIT!Or the one where Plo Koon finds Thrawn before he is Thrawn and brings him to the Jedi Temple for training.
Series: Emergent Order [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2175597
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	1. Jerk Systems

The story started with an unremarkable family. They had exactly one claim to being anything but poor bumpkins: managing to produce two Force sensitive children. Their daughter left first, never to be seen by them again. Kivu’raw’nuru was next. His little brother they got to keep.

There had been another potential sky-walker on their home planet. She had been packed off on one ship, Raw’nuru on another. It had been done for their safety, and one could say that it had worked. One ship made it away from the ambush. The other didn’t.

It was an acceptable loss to the Ascendancy, though the acceptance had been grudging. A potential sky-walker was, after all, a valuable member of the navy for the time they kept their abilities. But no survivors had been found in the wreckage.

But his sister and brother were both still there, and their children would potentially be Force sensitive. Raw’nuru was not essential to the existence of the Ascendancy, and accidents happened to space ships, after all—and so that had been Raw’nuru’s epitaph for his people.

It hadn’t been one for him, though—the story had just started.

There had been another ship, different from the Chiss one. There were people who weren’t Chiss, speaking unknown languages. And there was a different kind of fear than the one he knew from home—not the fear of being different, of not fitting in, but fear of death and of pain.

There had been another sky-walker there, one a few years older than Raw’nuru. She’d tried to teach him, but the fear was already eating her alive, and her lessons were tainted by it. She did teach him enough Sy Bisti to get by, though, before the Grysk commander decided that Raw’nuru had learned enough and she was transferred to another ship.

And then, they went beyond the Grysk territories.

The Grysk and their clients boarded a light diplomatic ship. The last thing the commander heard before losing contact was screams about magic and a sword of light. He had given the order to break off from the diplomatic ship, but it was too late.

Someone entered the bridge—they were around the size of a Chiss adult, but with thick pink skin and wearing a rebreather mask and some sort of goggles. They asked the Grysk commander to surrender.

He refused to give up. It was the last decision he ever made. 

* * *

Why a child of a species Plo Koon only knew as a Wild Space myth was on the bridge was a question without answer for now, given that one of the people who could answer this question was dead and the other’s command of the languages Plo Koon spoke was limited to rudimentary Sy Bisti. Enough to communicate basic needs, but not enough for a nuanced conversation.

But the mystery would have had to wait, even if the boy had spoken fluent Kel Dor.

“I will not hurt you,” Plo Koon said, as they knelt down on the floor to look the child in the eye.

“I know,” the boy replied frowning. “How?”

That was a curious reaction. Normally, a Force sensitive child, even an untrained one, would still trust their instincts at this age. The boy seemed to be questioning them- Ah. No, analyzing.

“You’re Force sensitive, like me,” Plo Koon said.

The boy frowned deeper for a moment, and Plo Koon felt something like a probing touch of the child’s mind. Definitely untrained in such use of the Force, but capable nonetheless. Then, the boy nodded.

“I’m coming with you,” the child said. “To learn.”

“Don’t you want to go home?” Plo Koon asked.

“I will go later,” the boy said. “On my own.” And that seemed to be as much as he would be getting out of him on the subject.

“Very well,” Plo Koon replied. “I am Plo Koon. And you are?”

“I am Raw’nuru,” the boy replied. “But call me Rawn.”

* * *

Raw’nuru really needed to get better at speaking something Plo Koon spoke, because he had so many questions, and Plo Koon was actually answering them, rather than telling him they were not allowed to answer Raw’nuru’s questions or that Raw’nuru was too young to understand.

“And they let you fly alone, even if you have Third Sight?” Raw’nuru asked. “Isn’t it dangerous?” Then, he remembered that Plo Koon didn’t call it Third Sight, but rather the Force, so he corrected himself quickly, “I mean the Force. You have the Force.”

“The galaxy can be dangerous,” Plo Koon said. “This is why Jedi are taught how to protect themselves. When I was your age, I was in the Temple on Coruscant learning how to protect myself and others, and then when I got older, I would travel with other Jedi.”

Raw’nuru thought this sounded much nicer than being a sky-walker. _That_ had been more like being a glass doll—something to be handled with care, but a thing nonetheless.

“And where you’re from, every child with Thi- with the Force becomes Jedi?” he asked.

“No, not every child,” Plo Koon said, to Raw’nuru’s confusion. “Being a Jedi is hard, so we cannot force someone to become a Jedi, if they feel it’s too much or the wrong path for them.”

“But children get to decide?” Raw’nuru asked. “I get to choose?”

“Yes,” Plo Koon replied. “You’re the one who will live with the consequences, so taking the choice away from you would be unfair.”

Raw’nuru thought about asking about what happened if a family said no, or the people you were from said no, but then he thought Plo Koon might ask him if Raw’nuru’s people would say no, so he just didn’t.

* * *

For several hundred years now, five, the upper age limit for initiates in the Jedi order had been. Long enough that the only one to remember the previous times, Yoda was. And even so, in recent memory accepted so old, only poor Rael Averross had been. Now, with a youngling about that age Master Plo Koon had arrived—a lost child, plucked from his home and placed in the middle of an alien world.

Taking everything much better than Rael had, the boy was. Perhaps an effect of trauma, some of the detachment was, but not all of it. Always unique, the child's mind had been, Yoda thought. Directed towards many goals, a mind like this could be. Learned cruelty, the boy already had—seen it and experienced it. But learned kindness, he also had.

Dangerous, the Force could be, towards children like him. But so life could be.

"Afraid, you are?" Yoda asked.

"No," Raw’nuru answered. Truth, it was. Trust in his instincts, the boy had.

"Wish to return home, do you not?" Yoda probed.

The boy hesitated, then his head, he shook. "No."

"Why not?" Mace asked. Stern, he was, but hard his heart was not. Worry, his frown hid.

Again the boy hesitated. Thought into his answer, he put. "Because I'm not supposed to show anyone where it is, and because they don't like me, I think."

Not the first child to say a variant of this, he was. Not the last, he would be.

"And I want to learn," Raw’nuru said. Truth, it was. Curious, the boy was.

“You’re Chiss, aren’t you?” Jocasta Nu asked, as the boy almost like a particularly interesting tome, she studied. Studied her likewise, Raw’nuru did, and nodded; quite amusing it was, how similar their expressions were. “What are were you doing on the ship Master Plo Koon found you?”

Raw’nuru flinched at the question. Shared a guess with Yoda, Master Plo Koon had.

“I was kidnapped to navigate the Grysk ship,” Raw’nuru said after a moment. The hand of Plo Koon, he clutched. Scared, he was, but refuse to answer, he did not. “They killed everyone else.”

“Navigate a ship?” Oppo Rancisis asked. “Why would they need a child to do it?”

Leapt at the answer, the boy did—a chance to not dwell on painful memories, it was. Force sensitive children, the Chiss used to navigate—no other way of avoiding the dangers they knew. As did the Grysk, but outside their borders for navigators, they looked.

* * *

Yoda, Mace, Oppo Rancisis and Jocasta Nu left the room, leaving Plo Koon with Raw’nuru in the supposedly soothing environment of the waiting room. Mace had been assured it was soothing to children under the age of seven of most humanoid species, and it did seem to be working on Raw’nuru, but Mace couldn’t shake of the feeling that had it been him, he’d be chewing on some soothing fluffy toy by now.

They walked in silence, each of them contemplating the decision before them.

“What reasons against have we?” Yoda asked Mace. His skill in seeing Shatterpoints and general tendency towards skepticism tended to earn him the position of Sith’s Advocate in most Council discussions.

“He’s older than all the younglings we’ve taken in this year,” Mace replied, “and mostly untrained. He will stand out from children his age.”

“Stand out from them, he already does,” Yoda pointed out. “And will too, if we send him away. Noticed you may not have, but glowing red eyes he has.” He hummed for a moment, and then continued. “Stood out from them, he likely has before too. In the temple, he will be, with others who stand out.”

Mace and Jocasta nodded.

“It didn’t help Rael,” Jocasta said with sigh.

Mace shook his head. “He doesn’t seem much like Rael Averross in temperament—I don’t think we should compare them. Especially so early.”

“That’s fair,” Jocasta replied. “We can’t send him back to his family, given that we don’t know where they are and he won’t tell us.” She frowned. “This may be a problem in the future, if he will not trust us in other matters.”

“He seems to trust Plo Koon,” Mace countered. “And he didn’t lie to us at any point. We should be able to build trust with him.”

“Likewise, I believe,” Yoda said. “Help him, we can if we train him, better than an adoptive family might. His people, find we cannot. Train him, we will.”


	2. Self-organization

There was a new boy in the Creche. In itself, that wasn't odd, because there were always new children coming in, but usually they were _babies_. Well, not actual babies, most of the time, but they were two or three, so Aayla still considered them babies. The new boy was five, though, like Aayla.

He also didn’t speak Basic at all, but that was OK, because Prosset spoke Sy Bisti, a bit, and anyway, they’d teach him, and then Master Yaddle would be proud of them.

“We should make it a surprise!” Aayla said and waited for Prosset to translate. It was going a bit slow, because Prosset only rarely spoke Sy Bisti since he came to the Temple, but they were getting somewhere.

“But Master Yaddle is already teaching me Basic,” Rawn pointed out. His name was actually longer—Raw’nuru, but only Aayla could get the sound between w and n right, so he said it’s OK to call him by his core name, even if normally his people didn’t do it with names as short as his.

“Oh, then we can teach you got to send ‘thank you’ in the Force!” Aayla said, all but bouncing on her feet.

“Then I’ll teach you Cheunh,” Rawn said. “You just can’t tell anyone I did, because I’m not supposed to do that.”

“Why not?” Prosset asked.

Rawn frowned. “I think it’s because the adults don’t think anyone but them are people,” he said. “But that’s not true, because you’re all people, so I don’t think I’m doing anything bad.”

Aayla blinked. That sounded _weird_.

“Your adults are _mean_ ,” Prosset announced.

“They are,” Rawn said. “But I guess they’re not my adults anymore?”

“Right,” Aayla said, “you’re a Jedi now. We’re all gonna be Jedi.”

* * *

Rig had decided she was going to be a healer after Master Vokara Che came to tell them about a Healer’s day. She was also going to be Master Vokara’s padawan, which she told her very firmly.

“So you can prepare,” she said solemnly.

Master Vokara then patted her head and told her that she was honoured, but that Rig shouldn’t get stuck on one teacher so early. Rig was fairly sure she wasn’t going to change her mind, though.

“You can talk to adults like that?” Rawn asked.

“How else am I supposed to talk with them?” Rig asked, confused. “If I have plans that involve someone, I should tell them, right mama?”

Mama wasn’t Rig’s birth-mama, of course, but they were her mama anyway, and Rig had been calling them that ever since she was little. (And yes, when she was little, she also couldn’t say “master”, but a lot of children couldn’t, so Master Yaddle had been mama Yaddle, and Master Yoda had been mama Yoda and so on. Rig had even heard Ah-ming from the Aiwha clan call them mama Yaya and mama Yoyo.) 

“You should ask, Rig,” mama Yaddle said. “They might not want to take part in your plans, or may have made their own plans before. It’s important to let people choose.”

Then she turned to Rawn, and said, “It’s good to be respectful towards your elders, but you shouldn’t ever be afraid to tell us how you feel, what you need or want. At worst, we will tell you no, and explain why.”

* * *

There were three types of meditation the younglings practiced daily: mindfulness of self, compassion and awareness of the Force. At first, Rawn only did mindfulness of self so he could learn how to meditate, and it was _weird_. He hadn’t even realized how many thoughts he was usually having, but all of a sudden, when Master Yaddle told him to focus on his breathing, there they were.

But that was all right, because his thoughts were like feelings—they came and went. And Master Yaddle’s voice was there to keep him grounded, so that instead of chasing them like stray birds, he’d come back to what could ground him.

And then, one day, he realized he could ground himself on his own. That he knew how to look at a thought and let it go, and refocus on his breathing, or how his hands felt when they rested on his knees.

It was then that he started practicing the other two. Compassion was weird at first too—Rawn thought it would be all about others, but it wasn’t. He was supposed to be kind to himself, too. It made sense too, once Master Yaddle explained it—suffering was suffering, and it lead to anger. And then, if someone was angry and lashed out, then there’d just be more suffering, and more anger.

So, they learned how to be kind to themselves, so they could be kind to others.

But it was awareness of the Force that was by far the strangest one.

“Feel the Force around you,” Master Yaddle said, “here, between you and your siblings, between you and me. The plants in the pots, the floor and the air.”

And so it was—something like a kaleidoscope, or maybe a mosaic?

“Feel how the Force binds us,” Master Yaddle said, “how we’re connected. You care about your siblings and they care about you. I love you and will protect you.”

And so it was—the tiles that were the other younglings—his siblings—were different from each other, but they were still part of the same picture.

“You are alive and so is the Force,” Master Yaddle said. “You are one with the Force and the Force is with you.”

* * *

Yaddle was quite proud of the Ash-Rabbit Clan. They were progressing very nicely, learning with the enthusiasm so typical of young children discovering the world, and they accepted Rawn with very little issue.

They’d just finished lightsaber practice, and in a tradition almost as old as the Jedi Order, the children were now playing Cho-Cho. It was a variant of tag: but instead of tagging someone, they would take the Shii-Cho stance and touch the other child's arm while yelling, "Cho-Cho!" Then the other child would have to hide their arm. The one with most arms left was usually the winner.

Yaddle sighed fondly, remembering a creche-mate with six arms who had, somehow, never won at Cho-Cho.

Then they had to run and check on Prosset, who had collided with a wall.

* * *

The Jedi Temple was very very different from the Chiss Ascendancy. Aside from the quite obvious fact that not everyone was the same species, there were other differences that while not visible were also very big.

Like the fact that no one was so important that they just wouldn’t talk with some people like people. Master Yoda, for example, was on the Jedi Council and he still taught younglings various things, and would come to _play_. And Master Plo was also on the Jedi Council, but he’d still come to see Rawn and talk with him.

And the adults all treated Rawn like a person, and answered his questions and no one told him to “because” when he asked why something happened. He still wasn’t sure it wouldn’t happen eventually, so he’d occasionally get Aayla or Prosset to ask questions for him, but they kept telling him it was okay.

But it wasn’t just the Jedi Temple that was very different—the Republic was too.

“Do you know what The Republic is?” Master Yaddle asked.

“It’s where we live,” Rig said.

“Good, but can you tell me more about it?” Master Yaddle asked.

“It’s made of planets,” Aayla said.

“Is there a king or a queen?” Rig asked. “Someone has to make sure things get done and tell all those planets what they need to do, and you need someone to have parades, so people can have fun.”

“The Chiss don’t have a king or a queen, we have um… a bunch of people who are very stuck up who make decisions,” Rawn said.

“It’s a bit like that,” Aayla said. “But it’s more like on Ryloth. There the clans pick a representative for themselves, and the representatives decide on things.”

“And do you know what the assembly of Republic representatives is called?” Master Yaddle asked.

“The Senate!” Prosset and Shayl exclaimed at the same time.

“Very good,” Master Yaddle said. “The Republic is run by the Senate, which is made of representatives of member planets. They also elect a Chancellor, who is there to make sure that everything stays in order.”

“Oh, like the Aneot Visas for the Miraluka!” Prosset said. “So the Chancellor makes sure that everyone discusses a thing until it’s all settled and everyone likes the decision they made?”

“It’s one of the things the Chancellor can do,” Master Yaddle said and grinned mischievously. “And I think it’s best if you ask the Chancellor yourself what she does, since we’re invited to the Senate and the Chancellor’s office tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might recognize cho-cho if you read virdant's Home-onym.


End file.
